


whatever a moon has always meant

by stilitana



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Addiction, Angst and Humor, Blood Drinking, Body Horror, Complicated Relationships, Enemies to Friends, Fix-It of Sorts, Hallucinations, Injury, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Living Together, Multi, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Season/Series 04, Rehabilitation, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: Set after the season 4 finale, canon up to that point. The new trinity faces an unexpected challenge to their already precarious living arrangement from Cutler's reappearance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the place where I ignore season 5 especially the existence of Ian Cram.  
> Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
> 
> The true pairing here is Hal's inability to take responsibility for his actions without an ulterior motive and Cutler's willingness to do just about anything if the ends suit him.

   Nick Cutler had contemplated eternity both before and after his first death. He’d vacillated between paralyzing horror at the idea of nonexistence and revulsion at the thought of existing forever with no way to escape, be it in a heaven or hell. After he died the first time (it was always hardest the first time) a good deal of the former horror went away when he learned his maker was more than 500 years old. He was sure that by the time he’d reached half that age, he would welcome nonexistence. That by then it would be a relief, would be just.

 

   He stopped thinking words like “just” after the first year.

 

   He stopped thinking he had a soul; if he once did, it didn’t matter. It was gone, sucked out of him. If it was anywhere it was in Hal’s stomach getting digested along with his wife.

 

   Now he knew he’d been wrong. Here was the proof of his soul: he was in Hell.

 

   Hell was a borderline-unconscious miasma of heat and agony and blindness. It was the sensation of being both starving and nauseous at the same time; his hunger made him nauseous and then in turn his nausea peaked his appetite. He hadn’t expected Hell to be so visceral, but then, what was worse than being trapped in this body that was nothing more than meat for all eternity? Maybe he hadn’t had enough of a soul for any abstract torture so they’d had to resort to the old fire-and-brimstone tricks, roasting him over a fire on a spit and the like. And the worst thing the Greeks could come up with was pushing a damn boulder up a hill forever? He’d trade places with Sisyphus any day. His whole life had been spent pushing boulders up pointless hills chasing that five-second high of stillness. 

 

   He’d even trade with that bloke who got his liver—or was it kidneys?—eaten by vultures every day. At least they grew back, at least he had organs. Cutler’s felt about jellied. He could taste them. His own putrid body. He was rotting, he was bled nearly dry, and worse, something inside of him had gone wrong too. Not just the organs, but deeper. His consciousness, he guessed, had gotten all melted and disfigured right along with his body and now he was well and truly screwed sideways as far as coherent thought went.

 

   He couldn’t even drum up some scorn. That was what saved Sisyphus, right? They could at least feel some scorn for the gods who condemned them. Cutler tried, he really did. But he didn’t care about those wrinkly Old Ones who’d snubbed him, not really. They’d humiliated him, yeah, but it wasn’t personal. 

 

   Then there was Hal. Could he scorn Hal? He’d stolen everything. But Cutler hadn’t kept his hands clean, he’d tried to retaliate, sunk to his level. The revenge had tasted of nothing but air, left him feeling faintly sick. It wasn’t sweet; it dissolved the moment it touched his tongue.

 

   He’d hardly been able to look at what they (his hired muscle who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty) had done to that girl. Just more chances for Hal to scorn him, really. Bloody as he’d gotten his hands (his teeth, his tongue) he was still just a mistake, a failure of a protege who balked at the sight of blood as much as he thirsted. 

   Then he didn’t think much more of anything for a long time.

 

* * *

 

   They let Hal out of the chair in six days. Seven was unlucky and had unfortunate Biblical implications he’d rather avoid so for that he was grateful. 

 

   While he was restrained he’d thought some about souls and concluded that he very much hoped he didn’t have one. He’d thought it before when the guilt got him in a choke-hold but this time it was all about unfinished business and the fact that his would be impossible because Cutler was dead and so were most of the others he’d wronged, but Cutler stood out because Hal had made him. He’d be stuck wandering Earth forever until the sun went out and even after that. Better not to have a soul and just be done with it.

 

   It didn’t help that even days after he’d crossed the threshold and been staked, Hal was still smelling Cutler’s blood for some reason.

 

   But they let him out on the sixth day and the house was such a mess that no one had to make tasks for him, they just fell into his hands. In fact there was so much to do, and his thinking was so disorganized, buzzing with exhaustion and restlessness from being cooped up, that he had a hard time prioritizing and ended up flitting about in an increasingly hysterical haze.

 

   “Alright, go organize the rubbish or something, you need some fresh air and I need a moment without all of...whatever this is,” said Alex, pushing him towards the back door.

 

   Hal dug his heels in. “No, wait, there are crumbs between the sofa cushions, I need to scrub the sink! You’ve just untied me, what if someone comes by, walking their dog or something?”

 

   Alex gave him a push and raised her brows. “Are you or are you not good, Hal? If you can’t stop yourself from eating some poor old lady’s dog you better get your ass back in the chair.”

 

   He held up his hands and grumbled under his breath but went out the door as Alex bellowed for Tom to get downstairs and help her babysit.

 

   Immediately the smell hit him. Cutler, no doubt about it. He’d had that taste in his mouth; the smell was so strong he could taste it again. Annie must’ve dumped what was left of him out here. He recoiled and pressed his back against the door only to have it swing open and send him stumbling forward.

 

   “Oh, sorry, didn’t see ya there,” said Tom, stepping outside with his hands in his pockets.

 

   Hal glared. “Not through a closed door you wouldn’t,” he said.

 

   Tom wrinkled his nose. “You smell somethin kinda weird?”

 

   “Can you be more specific?”

 

   “Kinda like when there was a dead cat out here and it got all heated up in the sun.”

 

   “Right. Well, let’s look around for one then, because that won't do.”

 

   “Makin you a little crazy, is it?”

 

   Hal wheeled around with his hands on his hips to face Tom and looking around. “You said Annie killed Cutler, right?”

 

   “She staked him, yeah. But he was pretty messed up even before that, I heard. Got a little burned up with enterin the house. Why?”

 

   “I swear I could—nevermind.” Hal sighed and stepped to the left and then froze to gape at the...the thing on the ground beneath the stairs. He looked up and caught Tom’s eye before looking back down and taking a step back. 

 

   “What? What is it?”

 

   It was only seeing the tip of the stake that filled him with a dreadful certainty, that allowed him to know where the torso was in what looked like a puddle of flesh. It didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

 

   “Cutler?” he whispered.

 

   Tom jumped off the stairs and kneeled beside Hal on the ground to peer under the stairs. “Shit, Hal, is that him?”

  
   “What’s left of him,” Hal said, feeling sick. Why wasn’t he ash? Dear God, how long had he spent like that before he died? He’d seen men burned at the stake and somehow even they had not looked so gruesome.

 

   “Why isn’t he dust then?” 

 

   “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it, never known a vampire to fully cross a threshold uninvited.”

 

   “Had a death wish, then, did he?”

 

   “It seems so,” Hal said, voice soft. He wasn’t sure what he felt. Regret, sure, and guilt, but that wasn’t new. There was also something simpler, less commonly felt. Sadness.

 

   Then what was left of Nick Cutler made a noise and it got so much worse.

 

   It was more of a spasm really, a twitch accompanied by a wet, wheezing sound. A death rattle. Tom startled as Hal’s eyes widened in fascinated horror. They looked at each other, then back at Cutler.

 

   “Is he—is he  _ alive _ ? But Annie staked him.”

 

   “She missed the heart,” Hal breathed, and then snapped into action. “Go get Alex,” he snapped, and crawled forward on the grimy pavement towards Cutler. “Go, go!”

 

   “Hang on, for what? To grab another stake?”

 

   “That would be the merciful thing to do,” Hal said, feverish eyes darting over the melted flesh. Oh, but the thought crawled back, the black, black soul thoughts, the impossible-finished-business thoughts, the floating-forever-in-space thoughts, and when a thought like that tunneled into Hal’s head it burrowed deep and bit down and wouldn’t let go and so he’d have to do something to keep it at bay, to pacify it. He needed his dominoes, to organize the cutlery, to clean this mess up.

 

   “But I am not merciful,” Hal whispered, and looked up at Tom. “Get Alex, now.”

 

   As Tom dashed inside Hal reached out one shaking hand to touch Cutler’s...shoulder? He got no response, which wasn’t such a great sign, given the pain he assumed should’ve followed. He couldn’t be sure Cutler was even still conscious in there, or if he was mere seconds from bodily death. Mentally he might already have been obliterated by pain. It happened sometimes.

 

   Alex and Tom jumped from the steps to stand beside him.

 

   “Can you rentaghost him into the house?” Hal asked.

 

   “What? You want me to bring my murderer’s corpse into my house? What for?”

 

   “He’s still alive,” Hal hissed. 

 

   “Well, we can fix that quick,” Alex said.

 

   “No.”

 

   “No?”

 

   “I don’t want to kill him,” Hal said.

 

   “Hal,” said Alex, her voice edged with steel. “What did we just say about no more bloody vampires?”

 

   “I must help him, Alex. You don’t understand, you can’t. It’s my fault he’s like this.”

 

   “And it’s his fault I’m like this!”

 

   “I know. I know and I’m so very sorry, Alex. You didn’t ask for or deserve what happened to you, but neither did he—nobody deserves anything, life and death aren’t things you deserve, they’re things that happen to you and in between is just a bunch of, of bad decisions and wasted time and I don’t know if I care anymore how good or bad he is, the words mean less and less, but I must help him, I must, and I understand if you don’t want that done here, but if you don’t I’ll...I’ll do it elsewhere.”

 

   They were quiet for a beat. Then Alex said, “You know what...fine. What’s one more absurdity?”

 

   “Hang on,” said Tom. “We ain’t just gonna bring some random vampire in here. He tried to kill baby Eve.” Tom’s teeth clicked together with how fast he shut his mouth. They’d yet to talk much about all...all of that.

 

   “I know,” Hal said.  _ But he didn’t. Annie did. And now they’re both gone and we’re still here. Maybe if we were any good we’d be gone too but we’re here. _ “But I’m not leaving him under the stairs out here with the rubbish.”

 

   “So you’re choosing him then,” said Tom. “That’s what this is?”

 

   Hal shook his head. “No. I’m not choosing anyone over anybody, Tom. You’re...you really are my friend. But even if Cutler’s not, I did this to him. He did wrong by Alex, but I did wrong by him first, and what I did was...nigh unspeakable. I’m trying to be better, Tom. And because I really mean that I won’t leave what I started unfinished for any longer.”

 

   “Finish him then.”

 

   “I don’t want to kill him, Tom!”

 

   “Why not? He’s a murderer.”

 

   “So am I! Don’t you get it? And I’m so much worse than he’ll ever be. I know you don’t want to hear that but it’s the truth.”

 

   Tom shook his head, stubborn as ever. “No, because you’re trying to be better. You’re being good now.”

 

   “If I can be rehabilitated, so can he.”

 

   “Let’s get him inside, Tom,” Alex said, placing a hand on Tom’s shoulder, hesitantly. And they’re so new at this, all of them, god, how well do they even know each other? They know even less about how they fit together in this house. “Let Hal do what he needs to do and then when it’s finished maybe he’ll get a door to some vampire afterlife and we can live in our mess of a house in peace.”

 

   “There may not be a vampire afterlife,” said Hal, grim and deadpan in the face of humor, as usual, his eyes earnest and almost wet. “But if I could become a ghost I would roam this earth until the sun goes out if I don’t help him now because failing to do so would most certainly forever mark my business as unfinished.”

 

   Alex sighed. “Ok, creep. Let’s get this show on the road.”

 

   “Tom, go put a blanket or a tarp on the sofa,” Hal said. Tom gave him a lingering, serious look, but turned and bounded into the house as Alex rentaghosted Cutler inside, Hal following. She set him on top of the sheet Tom had draped over the couch with more force than strictly necessary and Hal winced.

 

   Cutler made another noise. There was no word, Hal thought, that could sum up that sound. It was muffled and weak, the sound of a dying animal. He rushed over and knelt by the couch. 

 

   “Cutler? Can you hear me?”

 

   Tom and Alex watched from behind the couch, the first with rigid disapproval, the second with revulsion.

 

   “I...I don’t think he can answer, Hal,” said Alex.

 

   “He hasn’t got a mouth,” said Tom. “Hasn’t got much of anything, really. Would be nicer to stake him. He looks like ground beef.”

 

   “Shut up,” said Hal. “I need blood. Lots of blood.”

 

   Alex snorted. “Um, what?”

 

   He looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “He won’t heal from such extensive injuries without it. I don’t think we have a whole lot of time to debate this.”

 

   “Excuse me? We just took you out of the chair, Hal.”

 

   “But now it’s not for me. It’s for him.”

 

   “We ain’t killin for him, Hal. If that’s what you’re sayin—”

 

   “Animal shelter.”

 

   “What?”

 

   “I’ll go to...to the animal shelter.”

 

   “Like hell you’re feedin him some poor innocent dog, Hal. No way.”

 

   “They euthanize some of those dogs anyway! Overcrowding, Tom!”

 

   “No way, Hal. You’ve lost it if you think that’s happenin.”

 

   “I swear I will take him somewhere else and do this all myself if I have to, but it is happening.”

 

   “Oh, because you going about unsupervised and making animal sacrifices is such a good idea right now,” said Alex, rolling her eyes. “God, what is my life. Death. Whatever. Shit. Let’s get some dogs.”

 

   “You can’t be serious,” said Tom.

 

   “I saw him lick my gelified, maggot-filled blood off the floor, Tom. The man’s gonna get some blood whether we help him or not and I’d rather make sure no humans get hurt in the process, wouldn’t you?”

 

   Tom folded his arms across his chest. “You two are mental. I’m stayin here.”

 

   “Fine. Let’s go, Hal,” said Alex. “But remember, a vampire’s a big responsibility, and feeding an cleanin up after him is a full-time job. They don’t stay cute and snuggly forever.”

 

   “Oh, shut up,” said Hal, heading for the door. “And don’t stake him while we’re gone, Tom!”

 

   “Yeah, yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2

They get the dog. Tom stayed upstairs locked in his room and Alex sat at the bar while Hal stared at Cutler, figuring out how to get him to drink.

 

“I think I’m going to have to...to cut his mouth open, just a bit,” he said, fiddling with his domino.

 

“Christ,” said Alex. “Hal, you better not go psycho because of all this, and I’m serious. When I first met you you didn’t even want to kill a spider and now you’re about to slaughter a dog in our living room. If you fuck up again I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do to you. You think this living room is bad? Trust me, I can make it so much worse, and I’ll make you watch me from that chair.”

 

“Thank you for the encouragement,” said Hal, and went about prying Cutler’s lips apart.

 

“I need you to eat something,” he whispered, though he could tell by how quiet Alex had gone that she was listening. Waiting for him to give up and toss the man back into the alley, probably. “I’ve got it here for you all ready, you just have to drink, Nick, and you’ll start to feel much better.”

 

“He hasn’t got ears, Hal,” said Alex. “You really think he can move? Look at him. This is just...really hard to watch.”

 

“Then don’t watch,” Hal snapped, marching into the kitchen and grabbing the turkey baster before returning to crouch by the sofa. He’d laid another tarp down and without any fuss slit the first dog’s throat. It didn’t even have time to yelp. He was focused. He was at his best like this, his entire being zeroed in on one task so completely that the hunger was pushed out, that all the other distractions, 500 years worth of memories, went quiet and the world shrunk to a pinhole. He brought the baster to Cutler’s face and squirted the blood into his mouth.

 

Some of it dribbled out the side and onto the sheet. His head wasn’t elevated enough. Hal grabbed some pillows and propped Cutler’s upper body up slightly with trembling hands. The flesh gave beneath his fingers. He could see slight indentations left behind afterwards as though the man was made of sponge.

 

“You, uh...you want some marigolds for that?” Alex asked.

 

“Oh,” said Hal, looking down at his pink-stained hands, then back at Cutler, who didn’t acknowledge being manhandled.

 

Hal got back to feeding him.

 

It was slow going. He could only hold so much in the baster at a time and it kept dribbling out even with the new angle. He wondered if Cutler was too far gone, if he really should stake him, and felt lost. He kept going. At some point he became aware that Tom was standing on the stairs, watching from afar. He started to babble.

  
  


“You might not believe it,” he said, without taking his eyes off his task, “but he was about the most squeamish vampire I’ve ever met. When I first turned him he wouldn’t drink unless it was out of a cup, even with the newborn hunger. He wouldn’t even look. At first he closed his eyes. Even as he drank he gagged. I’d never seen that before. Like it still made him sick even as he wanted it so badly. We all made fun of him. Called him reflux because—well, you get it. He stopped throwing up after drinking after a while, but it used to make me so angry.”

 

“I believe it,” said Alex. “He got real weird watching his henchman string up my body.”

 

“Reminded him of Rachel,” Hal murmured, drifting far into that quiet space in his brain full of the droning buzz of activity, of focus. “That’s how he found his wife. How we left her for him to find.”

 

They were both quiet for a moment. Then Tom asked, “Why’d that make you angry?”

 

“Because I made him. He reflected on me, and he was the sorriest excuse for a vampire anybody had ever seen.”

 

“Guess they still think that, given what’s happened.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Not such a bad thing though, to be a shit vampire. Wish he’d been a little worse, myself. What happened?” Alex said.

 

“I left and he had to learn to take care of himself. Without me there to remind everyone where he’d come from all the time I’d guess things got...a bit more difficult.”

 

“How long’s this gonna take?” Tom asked.

 

Hal shrugged. “I have no idea. It might be a while.”

 

“Allison wanted to come over for a visit…”

 

“Well, that’s great!” said Hal, doing his best to sound chipper while still keeping his attention on Cutler.

 

“Yeah, ‘cept I don’t have any money to put her in a hotel.”

 

“Why would you put her in a hotel, Tom, when we have perfectly good spare bedrooms?”

 

“’Cause you’ve turned our living room into a murder scene.”

 

“Now don’t take this the wrong way, Tom, but Allison struck me as the kind of girl not to be bothered by some, ah...well, don’t let me stop you two! Just pretend all this isn’t here.”

 

“Because this is all so easy to ignore,” said Alex.

 

“Have Allison over, Tom. I won’t get in the way. Besides, I have Alex here to help me. You needn’t worry about any of this.”

 

“Great, so I’m the only one without a houseguest and that gets me stuck helping to nurse my killer back to health?”

 

“Don’t think of it as helping him. You’re helping me. And I am still helping you with your unfinished business, I haven’t forgotten!”

 

Alex sighed and went about making some tea.

 

* * *

For the past three days Hal had camped out in the living room. It was getting a little unbearable having him there all the time, but on the plus side, all his neuroticisms were focused on one thing, so Tom and Alex got a break from the cleaning rota and constant tidying up. They also got a living room that smelled like blood and bad meat.

 

His days blurred into one long montage of television, feeding Cutler, press-ups, straightening the cupboards again. Tom had found work at some hotel and Hal promised to pull his weight in the rent department somehow, he just needed more time. (He had all the time in the world, and if the money situation got truly dire there were some strings left to pull, some quick fixes that would do in a pinch, would hold them over long enough until he got a proper job.)

 

He took to sleeping in the armchair downstairs, just in case.

 

He gave the house a thorough scrub-down and ignored Alex’s jibes that he’s become their housemaid, Tom’s trophy wife who stays home all day and has dinner warm and ready on the counter only, wait, dinner is dead dog.

 

“Shouldn’t we, maybe...bandage him, or something?” Alex asked on the third evening when Hal is sitting on the sofa next to Cutler, who hasn’t moved, doing a crossword. She’d taken an odd interest in Cutler’s health and had been following Hal around incessantly.

 

“Blood will help more than anything.”

 

“What about a blanket, or something? He’s all...exposed. Like, no skin, I can actually see muscle kind’ve exposed.”

 

“Which is precisely why I think it’s best we leave him as is and let his body’s natural healing abilities do their work.”

 

“That’s your professional medical opinion, is it? Look, I’m just saying, you guys are supposed to heal super fast and it’s been three days and he still looks about the same.”

 

“He wasn’t just burned, Alex. The external injuries are only the surface. Crossing the threshold uninvited has...far reaching effects. It’s likely his healing processes are focusing on more vital, internal damage.”

 

She nodded. Sat down beside him to help with the crossword.

 

* * *

 

On the fifth night Tom caught Hal at it. When Cutler’s insides had healed enough for him to more properly swallow he’d found a more efficient dispenser than the turkey baster and had been feeding him with it several times a night or in the day when no one was watching, but then Tom came home late and just had to barge through the front door unannounced.

 

They stared at each other. Then Tom said, “Is that Eve’s baby bottle?”

 

“Yes,” Hal whispered, ready to accept just about whatever came next.

 

Tom stared. “That’s...kinda messed up, Hal.”

 

Hal nodded. “I know.”

 

“Do you?”

 

Hal stared at him with sunken eyes deeply shadowed with sleeplessness. He nodded.

 

“Well, anyway, Allison’s out of school soon.”

 

“Do you want me to get the guest bedroom ready?”

 

“Sure.” Tom went upstairs, muttering something about vampires and nothing being sacred.

.

Hal did not find the irony amusing in the slightest.

 

* * *

 

By the eighth day Cutler was no longer oozing blood. The wounds all over his body lost their angry red color; he was pink all over with the beginnings of a first layer of new skin, so soft and thin it would tear if he moved too much. There was enough now to guess at facial features, too, but not to recognize him by. There’s a nose, where his eyes should be, but nothing that looked like Nick, not yet. 

 

That morning he opened his right eye as Hal fed him. Hal startled and almost dropped the bottle. The eye was milky, a film over the blue; it slid around the room until falling on Hal and stopping. 

 

“Nick,” Hal whispered. “Can you hear me?”

 

And finally, finally, whatever had gone wrong with his esophagus or vocal chords seemed to have righted itself and by god Hal soon wished it hadn’t, wished that Cutler’s voice had healed after and not before the rest of him so that Hal didn’t have to hear the sound of what it feels like to wake up a warzone. He gurgled around the bottle and started to choke, a high, keening whine coming from his throat.

 

Hal removed the bottle and dabbed the blood away with a towel. Alex appeared beside him. “What the hell is—oh. He’s awake.”

 

Nick’s eye fixed on her and the sound stopped only to be replaced by a series of whimpers.

 

“Can he even see us?” she asked.

 

“I don’t know, it seems like it,” said Hal. “But probably not very well. Nick, it’s Hal.”

 

“Do we have any sedatives or anything? Painkillers?” Alex asked. “Something to shut him up?”

 

“I think it will go faster now,” said Hal. “Now that he’s coming around to consciousness.”

 

In another two days Cutler was sitting up, wrapped in a thin blanket, the left side of his face still a melted-shut mess but some of the fog gone from his right eye. He didn’t speak, just made the same pained sounds whenever Hal stopped feeding him or left the room or anything at all happened, really.

 

Hal had taken to leaving the TV or radio on downstairs in case Cutler could hear. It also covered up the sound of whimpering. Meanwhile Hal had run himself ragged with lack of sleep. On the twelfth night he fell into a deep sleep in the armchair,  _ The Brothers Karamazov _ in his lap. 

 

Some morbid fascination kept making Alex linger to stare at Cutler. On this night she felt emboldened by Hal’s exhaustion and crept around the sofa to stare down at the man who had her killed.

 

“Hello, Nick Cutler,” she whispered. “You bastard.”

 

Nick flinched, which was about the most definitive thing he’d done so far to show them he wasn’t deaf. Then he went one step further by opening his mouth and trying to speak. At first it was a hoarse, garbled sound, but he tried again. She leaned down this time heard, “Rachel.”

 

She glanced over at Hal. Sound asleep. Something wicked gripped her heart when she looked back at Nick. She knelt so they were eye-level. “Yes, Nick, it’s me.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

 

“You’re sorry? Maybe you should have thought about that before, Nick. Sorry won’t bring me back.”

 

“You’re a ghost? But...but where’ve you been?”

 

Alex leaned in closer. “Hiding,” she whispered, and left him.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Cutler was as coherent as he’d been so far, which was great and all, Hal thought, but couldn’t it have waited until he had another couple layers of skin? Because now Cutler was turning his face away when Hal tried to feed him and glaring with real hate in his eye.

 

It had become a habit for Tom and Alex to watch Hal struggling through his new routine from the kitchen. It was novel, to see him willingly interrupt his own careful schedule, to get his hands dirty for someone else and to not seem to need much help resisting the temptation of the blood he was giving Cutler. Now they watched him, both thinking he had perhaps reached the end of his patience as Cutler resolutely refused to drink.

 

“What’s the matter with you?” Hal hissed.

 

“I’m alive, aren’t I? I saw Rachel. If she’s here I must be alive,” Cutler rambled with his slurred, ruined speech.

 

“Rachel’s not here. It was a dream, or a hallucination. You’re alive but you won’t be if you don’t eat.”

 

“You're getting off on this. You always did. Feeding me out of a fucking baby bottle.”

 

“Well for Christ’s sake, what, you want an upgrade to a sippy-cup? I don’t care what you drink out of, just do it.”

 

Nick moaned and closed his eye. “Don’t want it. It’s making me sick.”

 

“Don’t you dare throw this up or we’re going to have to do it all again.”

 

Nick glared at Hal, opening his eye to a mere slit. “I hate you.”

  
  


“I know.”

 

“You don’t. I really, really hate you.”

 

“Ok, fine, I don’t know.”

 

“Whiny bunch, aren’t they?” Tom whispered.

 

Even as he protested, Nick’s gaze kept sliding back to the bottle of blood.

 

Hal got up, poured the blood into a proper cup and brought it to Nick’s lips. “You want this. Drink.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“What...what is it?” Hal looked up at Alex and Tom, at a loss, before looking back down at Nick, whose coherence seemed to rapidly be sliding down the drain.

 

“It tastes off. Like… Where are we?”

 

“You’re safe.”

 

“Where’s Rachel? Has anyone let her know?”

 

“Know what, Nick? Just drink this, come on. Or I’ll get the turkey baster.”

 

“Let her know I’ve been in...some kind’ve accident. She gets worried. When I come home late.”

 

“Er...yes. She knows. Everything’s fine.”

 

Nick nodded. He let Hal tip the cup back and drank.

 

* * *

 

Later when Cutler was sleeping and the three of them caught a rare moment of idleness together in the kitchen, Tom asked, “Who’s Rachel?”

 

“His wife. From back in 1950 when I turned him.”

 

“Aw, he’s just a little baby vampire,” said Alex. “Only, what, about 80-something?”

 

“What’re you gonna do with him when he’s better?” said Tom.

 

“I told you before. I was thinking I could, perhaps, help him abstain.”

 

“You're serious about that?” said Alex. “Hal, you can barely keep yourself dry. And who says he wants to abstain? It doesn’t seem like a walk in the park, if you’re one to judge by. Besides, he’s the bad guy.”

 

“Does he have to be?” asked Hal.

 

“I don’t want him stayin here when he’s better,” said Tom. “He’ll be dangerous.”

 

“So might I be.”

 

“But you’re my friend.”

 

“Is that it? That’s the only difference? That’s your only reason to trust me and not him?”

 

“Pretty big difference to me. He’s not my friend, he lied to me and tried to have me kill a bunch of night clubbers.”

 

“Well, how about we just take it one day at a time then,” said Hal. 

 

“I need help with the rent, Hal.”

 

“I know. I know, I just need more time, Tom. I’ll make it up to you.”

 

“I don’t need you to owe me, I need to pay the rent.”

 

“You’ll have your bloody rent, then!” said Hal.”Sorry. Sorry. I’m just a bit stressed is all. I need to go...fold something.” Hal retreated to the living room where a pile of laundry was waiting only to find Cutler staring at him with his one good eye.

 

“Hal,” Cutler rasped. “Are you ok?”

 

“What? Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

 

“You need money.”

 

“Oh. Yes, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.”

 

“I’ve got three bank accounts been accruing interest for half a century and some shares you can sell. Could call in favors from a bunch of vampires and some werewolves if you really need, too. For legal services and such.”

 

There was a moment of silence and then Alex said, “See, that’s what I’m talking about. What’s the matter with you, Hal, you’re five times his age, why haven’t you got all that?”

 

“If you...if you teach him not to bite and stuff, maybe he could keep living under the stairs out back for a while so long as he pays rent,” said Tom.

 

Cutler, who’d been looking up at Hal and hoping for some gratitude to cross his maker’s face, instead had to watch Hal scowl at Alex, ignoring him entirely to give some witty comeback. Cutler glared and cleared his throat (which was shockingly painful, but he really should’ve expected that.)

 

All three looked at him.

 

“What?” asked Hal.

 

“I change my mind.”

 

“What?”

 

“You don’t get anything, Hal, because you’re a dick.”

 

“Hang on, but I haven’t even done anything! Not in the past minute or so, at least.”

 

Cutler glared. Let Hal stew. He wouldn’t spell it out for him. “It should be obvious, you absolute twat. God, I don’t know why I bother. I used your trick to get past the cross. I came up with all my own plans and managed to even sort’ve one up you. I crossed a threshold without being invited, which you said was impossible, by the way, and haven’t gotten so much as a  _ good job, Nick!  _ I’m always just making your fucking tea.”

 

“Making my tea?” asked Hal, and right, he hadn’t been there for all Nick’s waiting on Griffin hand and foot. Hal stared at him with a mix of confusion and concern. God, it was nauseating.

 

“You’re pal’s got some issues, Hal,” said Alex. Nick wished somebody would shut her up. “That’s just my opinion, but you know. Seems like at least one or two issues.”

 

“Hal,” said Tom. “He means you didn’t say thank you.”

 

“Oh,” said Hal, all muted horror. “Er. Thank you, Cutler.”

 

“ _ Thank you, Cutler? _ ” said Nick.

 

All three of them winced. Hal looked over at the other two. Alex shook her head at him, shrugged. Tom just stared,  crossed his arms. Hal knew that look. That was his no excuses, grow up and deal with this expression.

 

Hal looked down at Cutler. This in and of itself was a feat of willpower because he was not a sight for sore eyes. “Thank you, Nick. You’ve, ah...done well. You always were a good listener.”

 

Cutler tried to roll his eyes with mixed results and that was about the end of his lucidity for the day.

 

* * *

 

Alex hadn’t meant to make a habit of it, but now whenever Hal fell asleep in the armchair she crept down late at night or in the early hours of the morning to look at Cutler, unconscious on the couch. She could kill him in the name of revenge, easily, she supposed. But when push came to shove she’d never been one for messy, violent retributions. It wouldn’t bring her back to life, just like using her to mock Hal hadn’t brought Cutler’s wife back. She wouldn’t be like him, or Hal, killing to steal one last little thrill out of life.

 

Besides, she was a ghost; there was a whole afterlife of opportunities to explore if she could only get there. Dying had really only frightened her for the sake of her brothers and father, but according to the newspapers they were doing as well as could be expected. Not that she was entirely well-adjusted yet, but getting blood on her hands certainly wouldn’t help that matter.

  
  


Hal was asleep with the book in his lap again. She stared down at Cutler in the light of the streetlamp outside, through the curtains. There was a bit of fluffy hair growing back on his scalp in thin patches. Would serve the bastard right if it stayed like that, she thought, without much passion. They’d had to wrap his hands in thick gauze to keep him from itching holes in his new pink skin. The steady blood supply kept him pretty reliably doped up and docile, kept the pain of regrowing his major organs in check, but it didn’t stop the itching. It was all pretty gruesome and intolerable and she wasn’t sure that if she’d been him she wouldn’t have staked herself by now.

 

She was kneeling beside him to look more closely at the half-melted face of her murderer when he opened his eye.

 

She startled, tilted back on her heels and blurted, “You’ve got a sort've Phantom of the Opera thing going on, you know that?”

 

He blinked. “I kind’ve liked that one.”

 

“You know, you...aren’t really so bad. You’re just sort’ve attention or affection starved or whatever, kind’ve desperate and pathetic. Maybe it would be easier if you were a bit more evil. Maybe then I’d actually get some satisfaction out’ve staking you in your sleep.”

 

“I’m so sorry.”

 

“Oh, finally. I mean, too little, too late, but—”

 

“So sorry, Rachel.”

 

“Oh, here we go again…”

 

“I can help you,” he whispered. “I can help you pass over and go someplace better.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I thought you’d be safe. I thought we could...could still be together, somehow, even after, with what I was. So stupid, so stupid, I know, but I didn’t think they’d hurt you...I told them no, Rachel, I refused, even for him, I wouldn’t do it even when he asked.”

 

“Um...” she said, wondering if she ought to rentaghost upstairs and forget all this.

  
  


“I would give anything to have gotten to stay with you and get old.”

 

Christ. Her eyes were wet, her throat felt tight. No one had ever said anything like this to her and now she was dead and here was her chance to hear it from her hallucinating killer’s mouth. Just bloody fantastic.

 

“But you can’t possibly understand what...what that kind of horrible hunger is like, what it did to me, what he did to me, it...I can’t explain. But I really tried, Rachel, really, to fight it off. I just wasn’t good enough.”

 

“I’m sure you tried.”

 

Nick’s voice is nothing more than an under-the-breath whisper. “I know your unfinished business. We still have this one last secret, Rachel. Please let me help you. I know I really, really don’t deserve it, but please. I don’t think I’ve got a door but I’d really like to help you find yours.”

 

“Alright,” she said, and his gaze slid to her stomach, he reached out one trembling, bandaged hand. She instinctively recoiled and they sat frozen like that.

 

“They didn’t know you were pregnant,” he whispered.

 

“Oh, God…”

 

“It all happened so fast, we never got around to even...even thinking of a name. Do you think if we came up with a name you might move on, Rachel?”

 

“Oh...ok...do you, er, have anything in mind?”

 

He smiled, a bit shyly, like a kid at prom. “I know you wanted something from the Bible...you liked Isaac, but I...I don’t think I feel so good about that one,” he said. “I don’t want to be an Abraham.”

 

“I’ve always liked Jonas,” she said, her throat closing. She’d always thought she didn’t want to have kids, but now she never would. Now she didn’t even have a choice.

“And if she’s a girl, what do you think about Deborah?”

 

“I...I like Deborah. Baby Debbie.”

 

“Debbie,” he murmured, finally pulling his hand away and tucking them both up to his chest. He lay on his side, curled in on himself.

 

“So Jonas or Deborah it is?”

 

“As long as you like them. I would have loved the baby no matter what.”

 

“I like them.”

 

“Do you...do you feel any different?”

 

“Yes. I think I can go over now. But I’ll wait until you fall asleep.”

 

“You’d stay here with me until then? I don’t want you to miss your door.”

 

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Just close your eyes.” She reached forward a trembling hand and laid it atop his bandaged ones. He closed his eyes and within a minute was asleep.

 

Alex stood. Hal was staring at her, hands gripping the armrests, face pale.

 

“She was pregnant,” he said.

 

“Oh, so that’s what does it for you? That’s where Hal Yorke draws a line?” She shook her head. “I told you, you should be living in a cave somewhere.” Then she teleported upstairs, having had more than enough of vampires for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one gets a bit weird there at the end but what is life without a bit of gratuitous blood drinking between pals now and again, am I right? I'm right. Anyway hope you enjoy, I don't have a beta so if you note any mistakes or have any suggestions I would be very grateful if you'd point them out!

The better Cutler got, the worse it was having him in the living room. He whimpered when the blood high wore off and he remembered he was in incredible pain. He whined when Hal didn’t pay enough attention to him, which was often given he seemed to have the object permanence of an infant and got worked up whenever Hal left his immediate line of sight for more than a couple minutes. And when he was more-or-less lucid he became positively chatty.

 

The fifteenth day seemed to mark the breaking of some kind of fever and his personality came tumbling through whatever dam of pain and sickness had broke. The rest of the house wasn’t quite sure how much of an improvement that was.

 

“Hal, where the fuck are we?” Cutler asked that morning, sitting up and looking around for the first time with some interest in his surroundings. “We’re in the house of the bloody war child, aren’t we? Is she still here? Is that ghost that dumped me outside here? I couldn’t find you, after everything went down—I may have gone a bit mental towards the end there, I admit, but can you blame me? What’re you gonna do to me?”

 

“The war child—Eve—and Annie are gone.”

 

“Right. Like, off on holiday gone, or…”

 

“Dead gone, Cutler. And I’m not going to do anything to you.”

 

A beat of silence, then, “That’s a bit of a shame, really.”

 

In the kitchen, Alex snorted.

 

“I am helping you regain your health,” said Hal, glaring over his dominoes at Alex.

 

“What’s with the dominoes?”

 

“It helps me concentrate.”

 

“On what?”

 

“On not slaughtering our neighbors,” Alex called.

 

“Oh. So you’re really off it again?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It doesn’t...doesn’t kill you?”

 

“No, a vampire in good health otherwise can survive completely dry.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“Guess you just forgot to mention that fifty years ago, huh? Back in the bad old days, right, Hal? Just sort’ve slipped your mind between all the gravedigging and forcing me to...but that’s all behind you, you’re good now so you’ve suddenly remembered, that about right?”

 

“Cutler, I…”

 

“Oh, sod off.”

 

Hal sighed and stood up, moving to the kitchen.

 

Cutler panicked. “Wait!”

 

“What? You just told me to—”

 

“But...you’re not really supposed to listen… Aren’t you gonna, I don’t know, punish me for my insolence? Or are you just gonna stack some more dominoes? That really how you’re dealing with it all now?”

 

Hal sighed and returned to the sofa with his book and turned the TV on. “No punishments. Can you just quietly watch something for a bit? I’ve got a severely neglected schedule to catch up with.”

 

“I’m hungry.”

 

“You just ate.”

 

“I want normal food.”

 

“You don’t need that. Besides, digestion is just a distraction from your body’s healing. It’ll slow it down.”

 

“How about mouthwash?”

 

“What do you want that for?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know, Hal, maybe to paint his nails with,” Alex snarked, flopping into the armchair.

 

Nick snorted, then looked at her and balked. “Say, uh...no hard feelings, right?”

 

“Oh, no. There are at least a few of those lying around, but I’m choosing to work them out all healthfully like. I know that must seem very strange to you two.”

 

Nick looked at Hal. “I really like her.”

 

“Please just let me read for half an hour,” Hal pleaded.

 

“Get me some fucking Listerine. Also you’ve really got to not let me talk to you like that, it’s making me very uncomfortable.”

 

“Oh, Devil take it all!” Hal said, standing up and looming over Nick, who cowered, but in a very comfortable, satisfied sort of way. He tried not to smirk. “Er,” Hal mumbled, shrinking back. “Yeah, I’ll get it, hang on.”

 

He retrieved the mouthwash and then watched Cutler drain about half the bottle.

 

“That’s not got any alcohol in it, if you wanted to get drunk you could’ve just asked, Christ,” said Alex.

 

“I wasn’t trying to, but I’ll remember that for later,” said Cutler.

 

Hal snatched the bottle back. “You’re not supposed to swallow this stuff.”

 

“But that’s how you get the taste out of your throat, isn’t it?”

 

“What?” Hal snapped, a vein beside his eye jumping.

  
“The blood taste.”

 

“Hang on,” said Alex. “Don’t you guys _ like  _ blood? I mean, I figured it must taste pretty damn good the way you carry on.”

 

“Depends. When you’re not starving yourself like Hal and all you’ve got to do is sit around all day with it in your mouth and you’re not really craving it anymore you start to remember what it tasted like before and then it’s just about enough to make you sick.”

 

“Well, I’ve never had that problem,” said Hal.

 

Cutler rolled his eye. “That talent’s wasted on you.”

 

“After 500 years everything else tends to lose its taste. It can be like chewing sand. Especially when you’re clean.”

 

“About what year did that happen? ‘Cause that’s when I think I’ll go ahead and stake myself proper.”

 

“It comes and goes,” said Hal. “Sometimes it’s even almost bearable.” He was doing it again, Cutler noticed. Thumb to pointer, middle, ring, little finger, and back up again. He’d done it sometimes, before, but not as much, not with such restrained intensity, like life and death depended on the patterns. 

 

The words came before he had a chance to stop them, to think it through. “Are you ok?” Cutler asked, and cursed himself.

 

Hal stopped tapping. “Yes. Why?”

 

“Just a bit more jittery than I remember.”

 

“You’ve come a bit unhinged yourself.”

 

“All thanks to you.”

 

Tom came through the door in his hotel uniform. “I see he’s up and chatting. About time to get him out of here, Hal?”

 

Nick stared at Hal with anger and alarm. “You’re leaving me again?”

 

“Well, it’s not—”

“Don’t you dare, Hal. Where am I supposed to go?”

 

Hal sighed. Looked at Tom, pleadingly.

 

“Is this about the club thing?” Nick asked. “Because I’m sorry about that, Tom, I really did like you, you’re a good kid. It was nothing personal.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Look, all I’m saying is, I’ve let worse things go myself, so who knows, with a little time you might—”

“Hal, shut him up.”

 

Hal pressed a finger to Cutler’s lips and watched with fascination as Cutler’s gaze zeroed in on it, his eye going black.

 

“Oh,” said Hal, dumbly. “That’s…”

 

Cutler’s breath exhaled shakily as he started to pant.

 

“What’re you doing to him?” said Alex.

 

Hal pulled his hand away, Cutler’s gaze following the moment. “I think this was bound to happen eventually. Revivals and healings of this magnitude typically involve at least a bit of vampire blood, preferably from maker or protege. It goes much faster and smoother that way.”

 

“You’re telling me we could’ve been done with this weeks ago if you’d just given him some of your blood?” Alex asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

“What the fuck, Hal!”

  
“Look, it’s like you yourself said, I’ve just gotten out of the chair, I hardly thought it a good idea to be giving him my blood right away! I’ve only got so much.”

 

“Hal,” Cutler said, practically salivating.

 

Alex smacked him and the black fled from his eye. He blinked up at her.

 

“Sorry, but I won’t have him falling off the wagon again because of you.”

 

“You’ve been giving me dog blood,” Cutler rasped, accusatorily. “Hal, I’m so...it hurts.”

 

“I know,” said Hal. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Is this gonna be a problem?” asked Tom, stepping around the couch and gripping a stake.

 

Cutler winced and shrank back. Then he giggled and leaned forward until his chest was pressed against the tip of the stake. A manic gleam came into his eye. “Do it. Get revenge, Tom.  I knew I’d die when I came in here for that baby, I was ready, I wanted it.”

 

Tom stepped back, uncomfortable. “Hang on…”

 

Nick turned his gaze on Hal, pleading. “You’re torturing me, is that it? Making me stay like this forever when I know you can make it better?”

 

Hal licked his lips. His hands trembled, he was doing his stupid tapping again but his fingers kept slipping. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said. Again with the counting. God, was it this easy to make him lose control now? Hal winced, took a deep and unnecessary breath, trying to reign himself in.

 

“Fives,” Nick said.

 

Hal winced again. “Don’t.”

 

“What’s fives?” said Tom.

 

“It’s a number, Tom,” said Hal.

 

“Why do you do that?” asked Nick.

 

“Do what?” asked Hal.

 

“Nevermind.”

 

And that’s how you manage not to know somebody at all, after 55 years.

 

* * * 

 

That night in the warm glow of the lamplight Hal came down the stairs looking otherworldly and dangerous and it really should’ve been the other way around, Hal clawing his way out of some hole in the earth, and all the while Cutler’s black eye watched him, his fangs aching and pressing against his lip. His whole body was pulsing, felt magnetized. He could hear Hal’s blood singing in his veins.

 

“This is a bad habit of yours,” Hal practically purred, standing before him, looming. “I should’ve weaned you off a long time ago. It’s infantile, that you still want this so badly.”

 

Cutler, moved beyond words, gave a soft moan, mumbled something incoherent.

 

“I think before I might have played this game longer with you,” Hal said, placing his hand on Nick’s head and—dear god, he was petting him, smoothing down the short, downy hair. “I would’ve found it amusing. But now it turns my stomach. Suffering bores me. I don’t like to keep you hurting any longer.”

 

Hal sat beside him on the couch and offered his wrist, brought it to Cutler’s mouth, and the world shrank away to the sound of Hal’s sluggish heart. Soon Cutler’s fell in line with it, beating the same rhythm, and then he bit into Hal’s wrist and felt warm and small and safe, nestled in the crook of something much older and more powerful than himself. This was why he used to be a religious man, this alone, for the comfort of melting away into something greater and indefinable. For blessed ambiguity, for the aching bliss of being swallowed whole and dissolved. Hal’s blood drugged him, took him over.

 

At some point he saw that the werewolf and the ghost were watching on the stairs and he lifted his head just enough to hiss at them, teeth red with Hal’s blood. Hal shushed him and gestured for them to leave and then they were gone and the night was a great dark eye that was shrinking to a slit and then it shut at the same instant that the mean, clenched muscle in Cutler’s chest opened and then he was home and slept dreamlessly.


End file.
